Health Challenge: Measure Your Waist! What It Can Tell You About Your Health

Let's set our feelings about looking great in a bikini aside for a sec, and simply talk about health. Have you ever measured the circumference of your waist? Interestingly, it may tell you some fascinating things about your health...

Experts have long cautioned that body mass index (BMI) measurements may not be the best way to gauge health, especially given the fact that we're all built differently. What's more important, though, according to a team of researchers from Tufts University, is what's going on with our waists!

In a review of 31 studies and articles on the subject of BMI, experts now report that a much better measure of health is to measure your waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio, to predict risk for conditions like high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, high body fat levels and metabolic syndrome. In case you're wondering, non-pregnant women with a waist circumference greater than 35 may be at risk for health problems, say the experts.

You can bet that experts will be talking about this subject for some time to come, and debating the best measurement to screen for health, but I encourage you all to grab a measuring tape and check your waist circumference.